Safe House/Red Meat/Hell’s Angel

Safe House/Red Meat/Hell’s Angel Review

AKA The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

By Annie Kenney

I’ve been on vacation in the states and only managed to see these three episodes on my return home! So, as there is another break, I thought I’d give you my thoughts on them! So, with that in mind, I’m going to call this review The Good, The Bad and the Ugly!

I’ll start with Safe House – I’m calling this one the bad – not that it was actually that bad but it was fairly ‘meh’. It had a slow drawn out plot, a fairly scary monster and some nice flash backs involving Bobby and Rufus but it was, for all intents and purposes, a filler and it left me feeling that this was an opportunity wasted. I liked the idea of the brother’s case mirroring Bobby and Rufus’s case all those years ago and I adored the fact that Dean caught sight of Bobby in the nest but I found the whole thing a tad confusing (although it might have been jet lag!)

Moving on swiftly to Red Meat – now this one I’m calling the good – in fact I’m calling this episode excellent. An instant classic that I just couldn’t stop watching. It had everything that I love about Supernatural. Lots and lots of brotherly moments, hell of a lot of tension, a cool and sarcastic reaper in Billie and Sam kicking ass! What is there not to like?

Red Meat started strongly and just kept right on going; seeing Sam shot in the stomach like that made me feel quite worried and more than a little tearful. Jared’s acting was superb in this episode, I really believed he was in pain and I winced every time he actually moved. Jensen was up there with him, those watery eyes when Sam was pronounced dead and that determination to bring his brother back. The pair of them just blew me away.

The scene where Corbin suffocates Sam was possibly the most disturbing scene I’ve ever seen in Supernatural and, even though I knew it couldn’t possibly be true, I was beginning to worry about Sam and truly thought he might actually be gone! The panic in Sam’s face and his realization that Corbin was actually a werewolf – just wow – I was totally into this episode and couldn’t tear my eyes away.

Dean’s scenes with Billie were brilliant; man is she creepy and one of the better characters that the show has introduced for a while. The way she slowly tortured Dean by messing with his mind was awful and made me feel uneasy and scared. In the meantime Dean’s ‘death’ was just as disturbing as Sam’s and I was praying that everything would be ok. The kicker statement about Sam not even being dead…Billie is one bad ass!

I only wish that more episodes were like this one; I wish that the writers would give up on the complicated myth arc stories that clog up the narrative with characters and odd interactions. All we need is Sam and Dean doing what they do best. This episode rates as a 10/10 and has instantly gone into my file of Supernatural greats…

Finally we have Hell’s Angel – this episode is the ugly (and downright ugly to be frank). Totally opposite to Red Meat it was everything about Supernatural that I have grown to dislike and I found myself wishing I hadn’t actually bothered to watch it!

What was wrong with it? Well I must start by asking the writers why ‘What’s dead should stay dead’ doesn’t seem to be a rule anymore. Why, why, why bring back Rowena?? She hasn’t changed, she is still just a pantomime villain and she seems to be in a ‘mugging’ competition with Castiel/Lucifer as to who can pull the silliest face! I’m always loathe to criticise actors as I am not an expert on acting technique but something is at fault because both Rowena and Castiel/Lucifer are way over the top and that stops either of them being frightening or likeable.

The whole plot was convoluted to the extreme; it jumped about from hell to heaven to earth, to Rowena and Crowley and Castiel and Sam and Dean and it never settled long enough for anything to matter. The Darkness isn’t scary or threatening either and it isn’t the actress’s fault but surely making the Darkness a person rather than something creepy and formless was a misstep.

So a disappointed 5/10 for this episode with only Crowley and his amusing antics saving the day. I’m concerned that this year’s Season finale is going to be like this episode and – if it is – then I might be considering whether I continue to watch…however as long as the writers keep slipping in those little classics like Red Meat & Baby I guess I’m in it for the long haul!